Sherlock the Model
by wendymarlowe
Summary: John comes home to find a woman in his flat. Scratch that - he comes home to find Sherlock dressed as a woman. An extremely sexy woman. Who informs him that they have a date scheduled to see an erotic performance artist and possibly catch a blackmailer. Oh, and it will be more convincing if John looks a bit dazed and a bit desperate . . . luckily, Sherlock can help with that . . .
1. Chapter 1

John's afternoon at the surgery had been particularly brutal, leaving him exhausted. A nap sounded good - possibly just a quick snack and then an hour or two to recover before facing whatever strange experiments his flatmate had decided to conduct in the kitchen sink while he was gone. Maybe he'd even skip the snack, go straight to bed, ignore the experiment. He wasn't that hungry anyway.

John climbed the stairs, opened the door, and froze. His mind seemed to split into two parts. The first was mesmerized by the woman pacing the living room in front of him: impossibly sexy legs going on for miles between her short black skirt and her tall black heels (the source of the clicking as she paced, John surmised), just enough volume evident beneath her tight midriff-baring sweater to keep her frame proportional, and _damn_, that impressive glimpse of taut stomach in between the sweater and the skirt . . .

She was tall, possibly even taller than Sherlock. A model, perhaps? The unusually short black hair, slicked back under a stretchy headband and artfully spiked, suggested model or actress were both possibilities. The breezy silk scarf tied around her neck looked hideously expensive. John knew next to nothing about women's fashion, but the entire outfit looked good - very good - on her. Good enough that she probably knew what she was doing, fashion-wise. The makeup was spot-on, accentuating her pale skin and dark hair with touches of bright red lipstick and something shimmery around her eyes . . . those eyes . . .

"_Sherlock?_"

Sherlock propped a hip (slightly more rounded than his own - padded?) against the arm of the sofa and grinned. "What gave me away?"

"_Fuck_, Sherlock! Why are you dressed like a model? A female model? In our living room?"

"Case." He frowned, although in his current disguise, it came out looking more like a pout. "You weren't sure when you came in, though, so it wasn't immediately obvious?"

"Not many women over six feet tall." John paused, but Sherlock was really and truly listening to him for once, so he went ahead and ran through his deductions, such as they were. "Tall, short hair, good makeup, expensive clothes, all say model or actress, but I'm guessing you were going for model. Scarf was to cover your Adam's apple, I assume? Good color for you, by the way, although I'm a bit afraid to ask how you know so much about making yourself look feminine. Your eyes were what gave you away, and I doubt someone who didn't know you well would pick up on that."

"Well done." Sherlock's frown melted away, replaced by a look John usually referred to as "charming Sherlock." He'd seen it several times before, usually used to wring information out of women (and occasionally men) while they were on a case, but this was the first time the full force of Sherlock's charm was turned on him. It was . . . disconcerting. And sexy as hell, even knowing the gorgeous woman eyeing him was actually his flatmate.

"What's going on?" John repeated, for lack of anything better to say. With anyone else he'd be looking for the hidden camera, waiting for the other shoe to drop, but this was _Sherlock_.

Who merely tilted his head and regarded John lazily. "We've got a date tonight. Extremely exclusive venue. I laid out your outfit on your bed upstairs - you should have just enough time to change before we go."

John blinked. "A date. With you."

Sherlock nodded.

"And you're in drag."

"Disguise." Sherlock's shoulder lifted in a quintessentially feminine shrug. "The invitation wasn't intended for a male couple. Plus I know you consider yourself straight, so you might have balked at going out in public with me in a romantic sense if I were dressed like I normally do."

John's mouth opened to argue -_ I _am_ straight, you nitwit, I have no interest in a date with you, you look fucking gorgeous right now and I had absolutely no idea_ - but the last bit cancelled out the first bit and he ended up not saying anything at all. "Give me a minute," he finally said, and stomped up to his room.

There on the bed was a new suit, neatly laid out, dress shirt and jacket and trousers, down to the underpants and socks and a shiny new pair of shoes. All in exactly his size, even the shoes which were normally impossible to shop for because John's toes were wider than his heels and he usually had to try on twenty or thirty pairs before he found one that actually fit. There was something scary about Sherlock having delved through his dresser and closet and sized his clothing like that. Sherlock having selected every stitch he would wear on their "date." John tried not to think about it as he shucked his jumper and changed.

Sherlock was pacing again when John came back downstairs. He looked absolutely at home in those frighteningly high heels - the pacing was all Sherlock, but the stride and the sway of the hips were undoubtedly feminine and were doing strange things to John's brain. And his groin.

_What the fuck is wrong with you? He's your flatmate, that's all. He does weird stuff like this all the time_. John tried to convince himself this was just another Sherlock thing, just one more way Sherlock was completely impervious to normal human things like boundaries and personal space and not bloody messing with his flatmate's head, but then Sherlock smiled and the bright red lipstick emphasized the curve of his lips and John was right back where he started, scrabbling to find some sense of normal in the situation.

"That looks good on you," Sherlock purred. He actually purred, a sexy rumble which did absolutely nothing to help John restore equilibrium. "We should get going."

John didn't move. "At least tell me what the hell we're doing tonight. How it relates to a case." A thought suddenly occurred to him. "Dear God - please tell me this is for a case, right? You don't just dress up like this for kicks?"

A flash of confusion flickered across Sherlock's face. A nice, normal expression, one John had seen many times before, which strangely went a long way toward calming his nerves.

"It's just, you seem very natural in those shoes," John felt compelled to add. "And all the rest of it."

"Well I did have all day while you were gone. Took forever to shave everything. And it's not like I've never done this before."

"For a case?"

"A few weeks, yes. Tonight's invitation was from an artist who knew me as Shirla, when I was, yes, a model. Magazines. I think I actually ended up in one, even after the photographer got arrested."

"For what?" John felt obliged to ask.

"Not all of his models were of age. Or clothed."

"Ah."

Sherlock waved the memory of the old case away with a dainty flick of his wrist. "Not relevant to tonight."

"But there is a case?"

"Probably. Blackmail, clearly, but not clear who. Hence our date."

John still made no move toward the door. "Going to tell me any more about it?"

"Not yet. I don't want to bias your observations." Sherlock stalked toward him, hips swaying, and John had to fight not to swallow hard while Sherlock could see. "Call me Shirla tonight, should be close enough to 'Sherlock' to not be too confusing. And try to look besotted."

John blinked.

Sherlock drew up just short of John and frowned. "No, not like that. Like you're not entirely sure how you ended up watching an erotic performance artist with me at your side and you can't believe your luck. Half dazed and half desperate."

"I . . . erotic performance ar-"

And then Sherlock dipped his head and kissed him, and John's brain shorted out entirely. Sherlock's lips were warm and gentle and still somehow demanding, until John finally gave in and opened his mouth and kissed back and Sherlock's tongue swept in and cleared out the remains of his sanity. When John finally opened his eyes and drew back, he discovered his hands were gripping Sherlock's shoulderblades through the sweater and Sherlock's fingers were gently stroking his jawline.

"_Fuck._"

Sherlock grinned. "Not yet."


	2. Chapter 2

The taxi ride was a whole new level of confusing. John desperately wanted to ask for a time-out, just a few minutes to think and adjust to the whole idea of this as a _date_, but Sherlock didn't seem interested in talking. Every time John opened his mouth to speak, Sherlock found a way to interrupt him - grabbing and squeezing his hand, a hot open-mouthed kiss right there in the taxi, and eventually those long fingers caressing John's thigh as if they belonged there. John stared at Sherlock's fingers and tried to marshal his thoughts.

"I need more information," he finally managed to say in a more even tone than he expected.

Sherlock's hand stilled. "About what?"

_Everything. This_. "What you expect from me tonight."

"Ah." Sherlock withdrew his hand and laced his fingers together in his own lap. "Just be you, John."

"But how?"

Sherlock sighed, sounding more like his old self than he had all evening. "Do you trust me?"

John froze. And then realized the answer wasn't as hard as he thought it might be. He nodded.

"I'll be . . . careful." Sherlock pinned him with that dark look which meant he was going to be fanatically focused on something. "I know you don't like to be manipulated. I acknowledge that. But tonight you need to trust that I know best how we need to act in the context of this case. And to do that, to have that control, I'm going to need to manipulate you a bit. Nothing you truly object to," he clarified quickly, "just . . . using what I've observed about you to direct your behavior toward me."

John forced himself to keep his eyes on Sherlock's. "Such as?"

Sherlock leaned forward - ever so slowly - and feathered a kiss on the corner of John's mouth. The contact made John's throat go dry.

"Such as that. Your brain says you don't want me to kiss you, but your pulse and your skin temperature and the way you swallowed back in the flat when you thought I wasn't looking all say your body is perfectly happy to be kissed. Eager, even. Even though you know it's me."

_Especially because it's you_. The words sprang into John's head. And they were true, although he'd die before he admitted it out loud. If Sherlock had been the woman he was dressed like now, rather than the fanatical man who shared his flat . . . John shook off that train of thought.

"So you're saying to just go along with this and let you lead?"

Sherlock's lips twisted into a smirk. "Essentially."

"Okay." John exhaled slowly. "I can do that."


	3. Chapter 3

"By the way," Sherlock said casually as they stepped out of the taxi several minutes later, "Shimani doesn't allow any talking at his performances. Convenient for me, since I won't have to disguise my voice, but I thought you should know."

"No talking. Right." John took a deep breath. "Who's Shimani?"

"Erotic performance artist. He and his wife create some amazing art together for extremely intimate crowds. Met him when I was modeling and he extended an invitation for me - well, Shirla - to attend any time. When this blackmailing case revealed that the client had attended a performance, I thought it was time to call in the invitation."

John shot him a look as Sherlock demurely tucked a hand through his elbow. "And we have to call it a date?"

Sherlock's eyes gleamed. "This is not a solo venue."


	4. Chapter 4

John began to realize exactly what Sherlock meant once they got inside. The room was a small one, roughly circular, with a raised platform and a thin black pole running floor to ceiling in the center. The perimeter of the room was divided into booths, practically cubicles. He and Sherlock were ushered into one by a silent blonde woman in a skin-tight silver dress, who pressed two programs into their hands and disappeared. John set his program down on the table and tried not to stare.

There were ten booths in total, he counted, all with the same velvet-covered bench theirs had. "Bench" was perhaps the wrong word - it was padded more like a sofa than like any usual commercial seating, complete with stuffed armrests on each end and throw pillows in the corners. The table was a good several feet forward of the bench, and currently held a bottle of wine and two wineglasses. It was too far away to be terribly useful as a resting place for drinks, and it felt a few inches too high to function as a normal table. The tablecloth was also positioned oddly, draping completely over the front like a banquet table and only barely covering the side closest to where Sherlock was now sitting on the bench, completely at ease. And looking absolutely gorgeous.

_Fuck. This calls for a drink_. John opened the wine and poured both glasses. He lowered himself onto the bench next to Sherlock, offered him the other glass, and took a rather larger sip than he had intended. He opened his mouth to ask Sherlock more about the performance, but Sherlock's sudden dark glare shut him up fast. _Right - no talking. At all, apparently._

John glanced around at the other booths, out of curiosity more than any particular urge to exercise his observational skills. About half of them were occupied so far. The design of the booths allowed him to see nearly nothing of the two on either side of them, a sliver of the two past those, and from the waist up of the occupants in the rest. All had throw pillows on the benches and wine on the tables.

The booth opposite them held a robust-looking man with white hair and a Colonel Sanders goatee, accompanied by a brunette half his age and probably half his weight as well. Next to them was another couple, a sandy-haired young man and a dark-skinned woman with spectacular breasts which had to be entirely fake but were impressive nonetheless. John couldn't see the couple in the booth to the left, but occasional shuffling noises alerted him to their presence.

People-watching eventually lost its appeal, so John grabbed the program instead and flipped through it. Shimani was long on the flowery prose and short on the details, but John gathered that he and "The Agile Goddess" - the wife Sherlock mentioned earlier? - had been performing together for upwards of a decade, to rave reviews, and were proud to have been banned from both Sweden and Israel. Tonight's performance would be a conspicuously unnamed "erotic symphonic production of unique and varying beauty," no talking allowed, and all recording devices - including mobile phones - were to be surrendered upon the start of the show.

John read through every word of the program at least twice, but nothing gave him any insight as to how a date with a cross-dressing Sherlock would bring them any closer to catching a criminal. He worked his way through his glass of wine and started on another. The booths filled up, some with people he could see and some with people he couldn't. Sherlock plucked the cup out of his fingers as John drained his second glass, replacing both his own and John's glasses on the table just as the lights dimmed.

John wasn't sure what he had expected from someone who called himself Shimani, but it certainly wasn't the person who strode to the center of the platform. Shimani turned out to be a little person of indeterminate ethnic origin, dark-haired and olive-skinned and wearing the most god-awful mauve waistcoat John had ever seen. He looked like he belonged in the circus, although John immediately felt bad for the thought. _Just the _coat _belongs in the circus, and I'm an awful person for assuming that man's height has anything to do with his profession_, he chastised himself.

But Shimani was talking, and there was a definite theatricality to his patter. He paced even worse than Sherlock as he spoke, explaining in a thick accent (which John could immediately tell was completely put on, thanks to all his time spent with his flatmate) about his "great work" and "kinetic human energy defining the art" and "dynamic architecture of the spirit" and "entropy of the soul" being "reversed in polarity by the act of collaborative artistic creation." John tried hard not to roll his eyes at some of the more florid turns of phrase - the man talked exactly like he wrote in his programs, apparently. The speech still lacked any actual discussion of what, exactly, the man's art _was_.

And then the blonde in the tight silver dress came around with a basket, gathering up mobile phones. John surrendered his; Sherlock had left his own phone back at the flat, which he communicated with a shrug and a gentle pat of his hips where pockets would have been if he had been wearing something other than a skin-tight short black skirt. The blonde smiled and moved on.

At the same time, Shimani was preparing to perform . . . somehow. John was surprised to see the "performance" would apparently be performed on the computer - three screens, set together, plus two keyboards (one musical, one typographical), plus a mixer and speakers and several other pieces of electronic equipment he couldn't identify.

The blonde woman came back around, one booth at a time, and placed a largish silver microphone in the center of each table. John eyed it and raised a questioning eyebrow at Sherlock, but Sherlock seemed completely unsurprised. The lights dimmed to almost nothing and the performance began.

Or rather, it didn't. John sat in the near-dark, Sherlock holding very still a hand's breadth away from his hip, waiting for something to happen, and it . . . just stayed that way. Shimani sat at his computer/keyboard/mixer/speaker setup, headphones on, one hand on the mouse and the other on the (non-musical) keyboard, but the room stayed silent.

_Almost_ silent. John thought he was imagining the tiny wet noises, but no - as his eyes adjusted to the dimness, he could make out the stout Colonel Sanders and the tiny brunette across the room. Colonel Sanders had his hand fisted in her hair and was sucking on her neck like she was an ice lolly. The brunette had her head thrown back, clearly enjoying the sensation. The man moved slightly, bringing a tiny "oh!" of surprise from his partner.

The sound prompted Shimani into action. The "oh!" was repeated, louder, this time from the speakers, then again with a bit of an echo like it was being said into a long, narrow room. John's gaze flickered to the next couple, the blond man and the dark-skinned woman - they were kissing now too, long and slow. Making soft noises. John felt something inside him stir.

And when Sherlock slid closer on the bench and bent to close his lips over the shell of John's ear, John nearly jumped out of his skin. He only barely caught himself from saying something out loud - whether it would have been a squeak or an expletive or angrily asking Sherlock what the hell was going on, he wasn't sure. Sherlock repeated the contact, then shifted even closer so his front was pressed to John's side and he had access to the whole of John's neck. John twisted to look him full in the face, willing him to explain, but Sherlock just compressed his lips in warning - ruby-red lipstick standing out clearly against his pale skin in the dark - and ducked down to run his tongue over the hollow in John's throat.

The noise John made was completely involuntary. He might not have even realized he had made it, if it hadn't been played back at him several times over the next few minutes at varying pitches and volumes and speeds. There was something strangely erotic about hearing himself moan, intermingled with the noises of the other people around him. _This must be the art_, John realized fuzzily.

Within minutes, John was past caring. He didn't care if everyone heard him, didn't care if everyone saw, didn't even care that Sherlock wasn't really female. The man was seriously talented with that mouth, for more than just eviscerating any idiot stupid enough to enter his sphere of influence. And he was discovering erogenous zones John didn't even know he had. The knot at the nape of his neck, for example, which Sherlock had traced thoroughly with his tongue. The tender skin behind his ear. The hollow place beneath the sides of his jaw, where Sherlock spent long minutes alternately kissing and licking and just breathing on him, making his skin warm and chilled in turns.

By the time Sherlock started tugging at John's coat, seeking more contact between them, John was practically panting. He shucked it without a second thought and brought his hands back to Sherlock's bare waist, where he had been memorizing the feel of the smooth skin along Sherlock's hips and lower back. Every so often he had to stop himself from letting his hands travel upwards - _the breasts are fake, no point in obsessing about wanting to see them, this isn't a real woman, it's Sherlock, after all_ . . . but then Sherlock would hit some sensitive spot, some hidden button John hadn't realized was there, and John's mind would go blank again. It was astounding how little thinking he was doing, all things considered.

The couple across from them were nearly naked now. John realized his eyes must have finally adjusted to the practically non-existent lighting - he could clearly see the petite brunette kneeling on the bench, the curve of her partner's extensive belly visible below her as she traced his skin with her fingers and her mouth. The rest of him was hidden by the table, but he had his hands firmly planted on her derriere and he was guiding her body as she squirmed on top of him. She was down to just a pair of dark knickers and a matching bra. Neither covered much.

And then Sherlock was untucking John's shirt and his hands delved inside and John stopped being able to focus on anything except the two of them, together, Sherlock's long fingers on his stomach and his ribs and _oh god that's amazing_ and Sherlock was pressing John to lean back against the arm of the sofa/bench/whatever as he covered John's nipple with a kiss through the fabric and gently sucked. John didn't even pretend to try to muffle his reaction.

He slid his hands up Sherlock's back, trying to insinuate them under the tight feminine sweater, but Sherlock swatted them away and pulled away from kissing his ribs to shoot him a significant look. _Right, then, just a passive recipient today_. John tucked his hands under his rear, holding them in place with his own body weight, just to keep himself from inadvertently reaching for Sherlock again.

That pleased Sherlock, he could tell. It also had the effect of slightly raising his hips, bringing his insistent erection fractionally closer to Sherlock's body as Sherlock slowly unbuttoned John's shirt and covered every inch of skin he uncovered with his hands and his lips and his tongue. John's trousers and pants were still untouched . . . _trousers and pants Sherlock had chosen for him, had laid out with his own hands_ . . . John hitched his hips upward, a silent plea.

One that Sherlock must have seen, ever-observant as he was, but was choosing to ignore. Sherlock slid John's shirt off his shoulders, leaving John bare from the waist up, and sat back to look him over. John felt a pang of embarrassment - his shoulder wasn't pretty even in the best of circumstances. The bullet and subsequent surgeries had left a spiderweb of ugly scars, tracing down to his pectoral and up as far as his bicep and cleanly bisecting the skin over his clavicle. The scars twisted and curled and ached with the weather and some nerves were damaged while others were hyper-sensitive and pinched when John moved wrong.

Sherlock took it all in with one of those long slow looks of his, his eyes dark. John tensed - but then Sherlock leaned down and very deliberately licked the length of the longest scar, from John's chest all the way up over his shoulder, and John shuddered. It was not enough and way too much, both at the same time - he was so damn on edge -

Sherlock's hand eased around to cup the back of John's neck, fingers massaging out some of the tension. He locked eyes with John - seeking permission? - and John froze for a long moment before his brain kicked back in and he gave a tiny nod.

That was all the permission Sherlock needed, it seemed, to thoroughly indulge his curiosity. And the man was nothing if not thorough. He mapped out John's injured shoulder, using his fingertips and his lips and his teeth, all while keeping that soothing rhythm with his other hand on the nape of John's neck. John began to relax. It was obvious Sherlock was categorizing his responses - watching carefully to see which spots made John jump and which he couldn't feel and which he shied away from Sherlock probing - but he did it so gently and John was so thoroughly turned on that he didn't particularly mind.

The "music" (if you could call it that) was louder now, a true symphony of human noises emerging from Shimani's speakers. It actually was artistic, in a way. John glanced around the room as best he could without moving - some couples were still kissing, but others seemed to have progressed to full-on sex. The petite brunette was happily bouncing on her partner now, her breasts swaying as she moved up and down. The blond man had his head thrown back and his hands fisted in his partner's hair as her head bobbed in proximity to his lap - John had a pretty good idea what she was doing, but it was amazing to watch nonetheless.

Sherlock raised his head, exploration apparently finished, and caught John's attention wandering. His face took on a sharper edge as he took in the room in a glance (his capacity to observe and instantly catalog everything was nothing short of extraordinary) and he positively _grinned_ at John in a sultry way that set John entirely off-balance. And a bit like he was in over his head.

Sherlock nudged John's legs apart, positioning him facing straight forward on the bench so he could observe the other couples more clearly. He pressed against John's chest with one flat palm, pushing John to lean back against the wall as the blond man was doing, and positioned himself kneeling on the floor between John's legs. And started nibbling his way downward.

_Fuck - that's why the tables are strangely high_. John couldn't prevent his hand from popping up and fisting in Sherlock's hair - strange texture from all the gel and the hairband and -

Sherlock grabbed his hand and shoved it back down forcefully, jamming it under John's thigh. John shifted his weight to accommodate it, feeling like an errant schoolboy sitting on his hands. Sherlock gave his wrist a squeeze, a silent command to keep it there, then those long fingers were unbuttoning John's trousers and tugging out his erection and John bit back a moan. Which immediately became part of the symphony swirling around them.

The kisses stopped just short of his waistband. John was quivering, already anticipating what Sherlock would do next, and then Sherlock's lips descended on his cock and the rest of the room disappeared. It was just him and Sherlock and _holy flailing fuck that's good_ and Sherlock seemed perfectly happy, eager even, to paint his straining cock in his own saliva and John's pure unyielding _need _for just a little more, a little harder -

Sherlock couldn't have actually been watching his expression, couldn't have seen his face, but he knew exactly what John wanted anyway. His tongue did something complicated just as one of his hands encircled the base of John's cock and John found himself making little mewling sounds of _want that, more_, only it wasn't words in any language the world had ever heard before. Just for Sherlock, just this, just now, just -

"_FUCK!_"

Someone giggled, but John didn't care about the "no talking" rule right now, not when Sherlock was sliding his mouth down John's entire length, how was he doing that, John had been on the receiving end of dozens of blowjobs in the past and none of them did half the damage to his brain that this one was doing. Sherlock repeated the maneuver, adding a little flick with his tongue as he withdrew, and John would have started babbling anything and everything if Sherlock hadn't reached up and plugged John's mouth with two long fingers. John licked along the sensitive seam between them and sucked and he could feel Sherlock's rhythm falter, just a for a second, before he redoubled his efforts and took John even farther down his throat and John felt the tightness that precedented a really fantastic orgasm.

He had just enough time to get a hand onto Sherlock's shoulder in warning before he came. Sherlock delivered one last lick, then drew back and took John in his hand as he came. And came, and came. John felt like he was riding a second orgasm right on the heels of the first, it was so long and intense. And all through it, Sherlock was kneeling there before him, those dark eyes locked on John's face, serious and _observing him_ and just the faintest hint of a smirk . . .

John leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes and just enjoyed the floating sensation. Sherlock pressed his cheek to John's thigh for a long moment. It was intimate and not at all awkward, considering. John finally recovered enough to open his eyes and squeeze Sherlock's shoulder, and Sherlock came back up to sit on the bench next to him and pull John's head against his collarbone in a comfortable cuddle.

The music really was amazing. John knew something important had just happened, something that needed a _we should talk_ conversation and lots of awkwardness later, but for right now he was content to lean against Sherlock's breast (well, fake breast) and just listen. Shimani had quite a variety of sound samples now, moans and sighs and grunts and a high keening wail which had come from a woman off somewhere to the right, and he truly was using them as an instrument as he melded them together. The music slowed, stopped, and in the long moment of silence, John realized that all the other couples must also have finished and were simply . . . waiting.

And then, gradually enough to not hurt his eyes, a single spotlight lit on the thin black pole in the middle of the room. The blonde in the silver dress stalked in, and John realized she must be the "Agile Goddess" half of the performance. Shimani turned to acknowledge his wife with a tiny bow, then whirled back to his computer and set to work.

"Agile" was right. She wound herself around the pole like a ribbon, fluttering up and down it, and somehow it still felt more like being at the theater than like being at a gentlemen's club. The music was surer now, with a noticeable melody to the sighs and some clear structure underlying the whole piece. The blonde's dancing was erotic, definitely, but in his current state, John was content to just sit and watch and take it in. He glanced over at Sherlock - was he affected by it all? - but Sherlock seemed just as happy to relax with John melted against him as if this was a perfectly normal thing.

All too soon, the performance was over. Everyone clapped politely, then the blonde came around with a basket and returned everyone's mobile phones. John got his shirt re-buttoned and his coat back on just as the lights came up, and then it was time to hail a taxi and head back to Baker Street and he still hadn't entirely figured out what the hell just happened. Sherlock sat in silence beside him the whole way home.


	5. Chapter 5

"Don't even think it."

Sherlock paused, hand already on the doorknob to his bedroom.

John dropped back onto the sofa and indicated the armchair. "Sit. Talk."

Sherlock sat. "What about?"

_What_ . . . John shook his head. "Seriously? I mean, I know my brain and my dick are going to take a bit longer to come back in sync, but surely even you have figured out we've got something to talk about here. Us. That. Tonight."

"Ah." Sherlock stretched his long legs out in front of him, crossing his ankles and propping one high heel on the coffee table. "You want to know about the blackmailer. The wife, obviously - she's the one who had access to everyone's mobile phones for the first half of the performance. She had the opportunity to both record the victim and to contact everyone he would have cared about not finding out. A pity, really - she and Shimani were doing just fine. They didn't need the money."

"Fuck the blackmailer, Sherlock!" John yelled. "You just blew me. In front of twenty other people. I'm not thinking about the blackmailer right now."

Sherlock tilted his head to one side, a mannerism that looked incredibly feminine in his current getup. "You enjoyed it, right?"

"Damn right I did, as you very well know," John grumbled.

He shrugged. "So what's the problem?"

"Can you . . . what . . . _Sherlock!_" John let out a breath and tried to force his thoughts into some semblance of order. "Yes, I agreed to follow your lead. And I appreciate that you didn't throw me into that completely blind, like you usually do. But honestly?" He studied Sherlock's face, trying to read some hint there, but Sherlock was just staring at him blankly with that one damn eyebrow raised. "You don't think this is something unusual between us? Something we ought to talk about?"

"But you got off . . ."

_And Sherlock didn't_. The sudden realization went a long way toward explaining Sherlock's haste to get back to his bedroom. If he was all worked up now . . .

John popped to his feet. "Stand up."

"Why-"

"Now." John drew on his best army doctor order-giving voice, praying it would work on his flatmate. It did. John took one step forward, then another, then a third that brought him almost flush with Sherlock's body. Sherlock towered over him in those high heels, but that didn't diminish the sudden sense of power John was feeling.

"What are you-"

John reached for Sherlock's waist with both hands and pulled. Sherlock swayed forward, not quite losing his balance, but very definitely pressing against John's chest for a long second before he recovered.

"You're eager to go have a wank," John said quietly, focused on Sherlock's hips. Sherlock swallowed and cleared his throat from somewhere over John's head, but didn't deny it. John left one hand on the small of Sherlock's back and brought the other around to trace up his thigh underneath the skirt. He couldn't see what Sherlock was wearing under there, something to bind himself down tightly so his anatomy wouldn't give him away, but John's fingers quickly felt the telltale bulge of an erection between Sherlock's legs. It was thoroughly squashed against his body and probably horribly uncomfortable, but it was unmistakably an erection.

"John -"

"No words allowed," John interrupted. He could tell from the way Sherlock's body shifted that he had shocked him. _Good_. John caressed Sherlock again, more firmly this time, and was rewarded with a soft moan. There was something so damn erotic about this - everything in John's field of vision screamed _female_, the skirt and the high heels and the tight midriff-baring top and the slight padding over the hips and the chest, but the skin under his hands was so deliciously _male_ and the moan was so damned _Sherlock_ . . .

Suddenly he couldn't move fast enough. John insinuated both hands under the skirt, riding it up so he could see what he was doing. Unwrapping - duct tape drawn over a tight pair of Y-fronts with architectural precision, apparently - and John was finally able to pull them down and let them drop to Sherlock's ankles where he could step out of them with those incredible high heels and then the edge of the skirt fell back down and it was just skin on skin and _feeling_.

Sherlock was gripping his shoulder, now, trying desperately to keep his balance as John cupped the weight of his balls in both hands and massaged them. It was odd, holding another man's testicles outside a medical setting, but this was Sherlock and he was so damn sexy in that skirt and he was making the most incredible noises as John explored with his palms and his fingertips and John was filled with an absolute _need_ to see his flatmate come apart, to make him lose control. He ran one hand up Sherlock's length and _damn_ Sherlock was seriously hard right now, completely on the edge, and John wouldn't have been surprised to discover that he himself was in about the same state.

It only took a minute or two, but it felt much longer. John discovered that the underside of Sherlock's head was ridiculously sensitive, even more so than his own, and once he discovered that it was only a matter of a dozen strokes and some creative wrist movements and Sherlock was groaning aloud and John's hand was covered in something warm and wet. Sherlock let out a long breath, like a deflating balloon, and crumpled back into the armchair. John wandered over to the kitchen to wash his hands.

The air was full of awkward tension when he finally finished (medical habit, couldn't stand to have anything on his hands, even when he was in the army and had to jerk himself off in all sorts of less-than-ideal situations with less-than-adequate sanitary facilities) and came back to sit on the couch. John's _"we need to talk"_ impulse had disappeared completely, replaced by something pretty much the exact opposite. He was a straight bloke. Straight blokes didn't give other straight blokes hand jobs after being sucked off in public, even for artistic orgies.

"So." Sherlock forced a tired smile.

"Yeah."

"Are you mad?"

"No."

Sherlock studied him for a long moment. "Still straight?"

"Yeah. I think."

"Want to do that again sometime?"

John swallowed. "With the model outfit, or just us?"

"Does the disguise help?"

_Did it?_ He stole a glance at Sherlock. "Is it something you like wearing?"

Sherlock let his head fall back against the back of the armchair. "It's certainly . . . different. Interesting. I suppose I don't mind it."

"Then yeah, I think it's something I want to do again. Sometime."

"Good."


End file.
